International Community marks World Day Against the Death Penalty

The international community marked the World Day against the Death Penalty on Thursday October 10th with the message to intensify efforts to persuade countries which still enforce capital punishment to abolish it. This year the Day was dedicated to the campaign against the death penalty in the English-speaking Caribbean countries that continue to use the death penalty for murder and treason. Some also adopt the death penalty for military crimes and acts of terrorism. Hanging is the typical method. The last such execution occurred in Saint Kitts and Nevis in 2008. Amnesty International said that all English-speaking Caribbean countries maintain the death penalty except Grenada , which, in practice, has not carried out executions since 1978, having now established the custom of not imposing death sentences. Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago, while having not carried out executions in the last 20 years, still provide for the death penalty to be imposed with an obligatory mandate . In the last ten years several countries have abolished the death penalty. In 2003, there were 28 countries that still carried out death sentences, today the number has dropped to 21. Unfortunately, in Asia Japan, India and Pakistan resumed executions after a long period not enforcing capital punishment. There has been also an increase in executions in China, Iran, Iraq , Saudi Arabia, the United States and Yemen. Regarding Africa Amnesty International noted on Thursday that several countries had made progress towards abolition. Benin and Madagascar approved a UN protocol against the death penalty. Sierra Leone, Benin, Ethiopia , Malawi, Ethiopia and Burkina Faso did not issue death sentences in 2012. Gambia and Sudan were the two countries that carried out the death sentence in Africa last year. Sudan condemned 199 people to death and executed 19 of them.